


Orbit

by steelneena



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Mission: Impossible Fallout
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Oneshot, Sad, Sappy, Tag for the end of Mission Impossible: Fallout, oblique references to MI3, spoilers for mission impossible: fallout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 11:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15532983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: Somehow, they always end up back in one another's orbit.





	Orbit

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Mission Impossible: Fallout
> 
> Written to Reparations from the MI3 score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPj4H8dR9wE

The facts were these:

 

  1. Looking into his eyes made her heart thrum with a wildness undefinable, an indescribable mix of polar opposite emotions: fear and relief at his mere presence, anxiety and calm knowing that something must be wrong, but that he would somehow manage to fix it, and love. Immutable, unfaltering love. A billion and ten momentary flashes of memory, his smile like the sun, his hands gentle, worshipful, his laugh a peal of bells and his eyes, warm and tender.
  2. His presence was utterly and completely upending, a dichotomous mess: his arrival a destabilizing comet to the planetary orbit of her life. Each pass he made through her days leaving a mark, for better or worse, and wasn’t that the rub, that their vows, made with the last moments of their real life together, made with all the joy and light and love as there had ever been between them, remained true even though they’d been apart from one another for years, though she’d attempted to build a new life (over and over) until something stuck, a new husband for a woman whose name was as far from that of her birth, or her first marriage, whose life was shadow and loss and pain and isolation, but also earnest hard work and goodness and truth and love (for what is love without loss, or loss without love?)
  3. She completely irrevocably loved him.



 

Painstakingly, Julia had tended to Ethan, the numerous cuts and lacerations, the swelling, the broken ankle, the broken ribs, the exposure burns and the various other injuries to his person. Her hands touching his skin as he lay beneath her on the table, breathing (breathing!) shallow but steady, in and out, and if she closed her eyes, the rise and fall of her hand on his chest was just another night spent together in their bed, Julia watching as Ethan slept, her hand on his forehead just a delicate caress to sweep his hair away as he dreamed in peace, the countless nights they’d lived and loved, forever emblazoned like a painting in her memory. But her hand on his chest was a different tender, binding his ribs, stitching his cuts, disinfecting his wounds.

Care became her. To piece back together the man she’d once pledged her life and her devotion, her heart, to, was to piece back together the fibers of the safety net over which it seemed the world constantly hung, precarious. For her to heal him was to save the world, just a little, as for him to take the pain was to save the world.

She saved the world with her gauze and her needles and her IV drip, and the gentle brush of her finger tips for one iota of lost intimacy. And Julia recalled the last time that his life lay cradled in her hands, when her breath became his, and her life she gave for him, _pressing, pressing, pounding_ until the beat of his heart was restored, and the world resumed its turning on axis.

To give him up was to save the world. And in his hour of need, she would be there to save him, just as he was there for the world.

And then, the inevitable.

Life would move on, their orbits disengaging once again, forever in and out, sometimes closer, sometimes farther.

Julia sat quietly by his side. He’d woken earlier, spoken with her, with his team and others. He’d lapsed back into much needed sleep and they’d been moved along to be looked at and cared for in their own need, but by Ethan’s side, Julia remained.

She imagined taking his hand, how it would feel to relax into his grasp once again after so long. A finger twitched towards his, the muscle memory still so strong, the reflex to melt into him, despite the years, inherently second nature.

“Jules.”

Julia looked up, locking her eyes to his.

“Ethan.”

“What are you thinking about?” His voice was raspy and hardly above a whisper, tired, but strong.

“What it was like before.” Though she looked away, Julia’s voice didn’t waver; with purpose she reached out and took his hand in her own, the indulgence washing over her like a sluice of warm water. It was rough and calloused, but it was his. After a moment, she placed her other hand on his as well, cocooning it in her grasp. Tenuous, his thumb rubbed a circle on her palm. When she looked up again, his eyes were on her, unwavering.

“It makes me so happy to see that you’re happy.” The beginnings of tears were caught in the corners of his eyes, lashes darkening from the damp. He made no move to conceal them and she allowed herself to match his gaze, a small smile blooming across her face.

“I’m fulfilled, Ethan. And that makes me happy. Seeing you makes me happy too.”

He chuckled, wincing. “Even under the circumstances?”

“Always. I’m always happy to see you, Ethan.”

The circles he was making on her hand continued, a languid loop of gentle tingling friction that lit her nerves like electricity.

“ ‘m I gonna live, Doc?”

“Oh, I think so.”

The jaunty smile he’d adopted widened and then fell away. “I’m so sorry, Jules.”

“I told you already to stop that. It’s not your fault.”

“But-“

“I’ll always love you, Ethan. I love you for who you are and I would never ask you to change, I could never ask you to stop doing what you do. We’ve been over this time and again. I need you to be out there, doing your job. And you need it too. And that’s what’s meant to be. It doesn’t stop me from loving you. It just is.”

“You always know what to say, don’t you?”

“I try,” That time, her smile came through the twin trails of silent tears.

“We’re both saving the world.” His eyes were sad, Julia could tell, at the words. “I love you too, Jules.”

One of her hands left his and she reached out towards him; the gap between them yawned with the width of a cavern, but her fingers brushed the tender skin on his temple, like the whisper of a breeze, and she’d covered that gap as if by magic, the connection so faint it was hardly there.

“We had better. I guess this is for worse?”

His eyes glistened, a pair of matching stars, reflecting her own. Julia’s vision swam but his eyes before her were clear as she rested her hand softlyy against the side of his face, her thumb catching gently at the corner of his lip.

“We had in health too. In sickness?” He returned, his voice thready and uneven.

“We’ve had in death. But we can’t seem to have in life either, can we?”

“No.” The word was almost swallowed by the force of emotion, but she felt him say it more than heard it. “Stay with me, Jules?”

“I’m always with you, Ethan. Always.”

The gaping chasm rushed closed as her body fitted into his side, hips connecting, then legs and finally the gentle cushion of her head at the juncture of his shoulder. They breathed as one, and as Julia’s hand finally came to rest on his chest, she closed her eyes to the feel of Ethan's hand curling over her shoulder, and his gentle exhale into the swath of her hair as he too shut his eyes against the world.

And for a moment, if only just the one, they lived.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Julia. I love Ethan. I love Ethan and Julia together. This is meant to be a continuation of their 'closure'. This is not them starting over, deciding to be with one another, it is simply an acknowledgment of how they feel about their situation and one another before they move on again. It is obvious in the movie that Julia is very happy with her life, but also still obviously in (reciprocated) love with Ethan. It's bittersweet but beautiful and that made me happy so I needed to throw up my feels in words.


End file.
